Jonah 1 Most people are familiar with the story of Jonah being swallowed by the whale (or big fish). We don't often read the rest of the book and therefore miss the sad commentary that relates Jonah to us as the people of God. God wants to love us and sends us to save others, and like Jonah we often try to run the other way. We are Jonah.

Jonah 2 In chapter 2 we hear Jonah's prayer from inside the fish. He is recalling the events after being thrown from the boat, and as he reflects, he is thankful for God's answer to his prayer. Like Jonah, when things get bad enough (like Jonah literally did in sinking to the bottom of the sea), we too can ask for God's help and He will answer.

Jonah 3 Too often we make the same choice as Jonah... to go the opposite way of God's direction. Verse one of chapter three sums it up nicely: God came to Jonah a second time. God will give us multiple opportunities to choose Him over the world and over ourselves. This goes for us as individuals and for us as a society. The God of second chances longs for us to choose Him.

Jonah 4 Before we meet Jonah, he had been a successful prophet. Then God asked him to get out of his comfort zone. Its easy for us to criticize him, but we likely would have reacted the same way, and we do because we are surrounded by modern-day Ninevites. God nudges and calls and demands that we go, but we choose ourselves and the world and all of our excuses instead. Then when things don't go our way, like Jonah we throw a fit and call life "not fair" when maybe, God is just trying to remind us who He is.